


Interview

by kitsune



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-07
Updated: 2012-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-29 03:42:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsune/pseuds/kitsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack interviews a survivor of Canary Wharf for his team.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interview

**Author's Note:**

> This has been completely jossed by _Fragments_ , but was originally written after _Cyberwoman_ to speculate on how Ianto got from Torchwood 1 to Torchwood 3. At that point I don't think we'd seen much of the Hub, either, so the kitchen was pure speculation as well.

Captain Jack Harkness stood in the Cardiff railway station, waiting for the train from London to arrive. Another Jones. Why did it seem like there were only three surnames for the whole population? He amused himself by imagining a vast conspiracy of aliens in Wales, all named ‘Jones’, and had to dismiss a flash of paranoia when it suddenly seemed plausible. He put his hands in his trouser pockets, nonchalantly draped the coat for best effect, and leaned against a wall where he’d be out of the way.

The train had arrived and people spilled out from the stairs to the platform. _Ianto Jones,_ Jack thought, _let’s see how good you are, because a retinal scan doesn’t tell me much._ The crowd swirled in Brownian motion around him, and a minute later a quiet voice with a Welsh lilt inquired, “Captain Harkness?” 

Jack surveyed the impeccably tailored suit and precision knotted tie. Did he iron his shoelaces, too? “Who are you?”

“Ianto Jones, sir. Are you expecting someone else?”

“No, just avoiding assumptions. They always seem to come back and bite me in the ass.” They shook hands and Jack held Ianto’s hand a little longer and more closely than necessary. There was no change in the other man’s expression as he took his hand back, and Jack couldn’t tell if he’d even noticed.

Jack led the way to the car park. He beeped the SUV open and tossed the keys over to Ianto. “It's all yours.”

“Yes sir.” He drove competently and conservatively, without asking for directions.

“What do you think?” Jack asked, after a few minutes.

Ianto said dryly, “Apparently well equipped, but not necessarily easy to handle.”

“You don't like my car?”

“Ah, sorry, I didn’t realize you meant the vehicle.”

Evidently he had noticed the extended hand holding. Jack laughed and changed the subject. “You know that we’re much smaller and less glamorous than Torchwood 1. And everybody hates us.”

“I thought nobody knew about Torchwood.”

“Well,” he admitted, ”we don’t get the camouflage you guys had from all the other bureaucracy in London, so the police and military know our name. Nothing else, but they don’t like to see us coming. You get used to it.”

Ianto neatly parked the SUV, turned off the engine, and handed him the keys. “How did you recognize me at the station?” Jack asked as they stepped out.

“The administrative staff are…were expected to know all senior people by sight, even the heads of minor offices.”

“I suppose that’ll be useful if we ever find Torchwood 4.”

“And you yourself are quite, ah, memorable, sir.”

“I try.” Jack strode towards the Tourist Office entrance. “What do you know about the Hub?”

“Other than the location, not much. I never expected to leave Torchwood 1.”

“How do you feel about working in Cardiff?”

The younger man looked down. “It’s all there is, now,” he said softly.

Jack ushered him through the hidden door and down the hallway. As the door rolled back, he glanced at Ianto’s face. Only a little dismay showed at his first view of the chaos and grunge, and Jack had to admire his self-control. “Let’s get the formalities out of the way first. Over here.” As the computer compared the retinal scan, he watched Ianto neaten each stack of paper on the desk, apparently an unconscious reflex. After the verification Jack said, “I’m relieved. I always worry that one of these days I’m going to bring home an alien by mistake.”

“How much information do you have from Torchwood 1?”

Jack shrugged. “That’s it. Security clearances and retinal scans on employees, in case we need to liaise or someone shows up on our doorstep. The rest was on a need-to-know basis and everyone assumed that we’d be calling London for help, not vice versa. Speaking of assumptions biting you in the ass.”

He waved at the Hub. “Not as flashy as Canary Wharf, but at least I can promise that we don’t have Cybermen or Daleks hiding in the basement. Our biggest problems occur when the Rift becomes unstable and junk drops through to land in some farmer’s field. I’ll show you around.”

Jack led the way past more desks and computer screens, and Ianto asked about staffing. “It’s hard to keep people. I’m down to just Owen and Suzie at the moment. The others…” He sighed. “Careless. Or unlucky. This is Suzie Costello. Artifacts.” She flipped a hand in their direction and muttered “Hello” without lifting her head from the oddly shaped piece of metal she was leaning over. “She gets a little obsessive when she’s working on them, but she’s the best.”

They continued walking and Jack gestured.

“Owens’ station is there; he takes care of all our medical stuff. Lousy bedside manner, so we try not to get hurt. He’s at the hospital, checking on some lab results that the computer flagged. The next computer genius goes here. I’ve got one in mind, but I don’t know if I can get to her before the government does. My office over there, autopsy room down the stairs. More levels below. We maintain surveillance of the alien holding cells on the closest ones, but for deeper levels we depend on the computer’s automatic security scans.” He looked at the man beside him, wondering what motivated him. “I’m glad you emailed me. We need someone to get us organized, and it’s convenient that you can start without the whole round of security checks. But why come here? Why not London? Torchwood should open a lot of doors for you.”

Ianto shrugged. “If it’s out of Torchwood I’d be retconned first. I don’t want to take minutes at endless Building Committee meetings, and they’re the only management group left under Torchwood 1 authority.”

They’d circled around most of the Hub, and Jack stopped. “Alright, time to confess.” Ianto glanced at him, startled, then relaxed as Jack pointed and continued, “The kitchen. If this doesn’t send you away screaming…”. There was a glass pot with sludge old enough to be carbon dated, instant coffee scattered everywhere, a sink overflowing with dirty mugs, sugar on the floor and an open drawer with spoons jumbled together, most not very clean. Empty pizza boxes were piled in every corner, and not quite empty Chinese food containers took up any remaining counter space. Ianto looked appalled. “You drink this?”

“Well, most of the time we play paper/scissors/rock to see who goes to Starbucks. But when we’re desperate, yeah.”

“I can see why you need me, Captain.”

“To make coffee?”

“I make very good coffee,” Ianto said, unoffended. “And it’s always nice to be needed.”

“Well, feel free to impress me.” Jack sat down in one of the chairs, propped his feet on the table, and looked at Ianto expentantly. Ianto himself looked around appraisingly, and in less time than Jack thought humanly possible, had cleaned the counters, organized the supplies, swept the floor, found a clean pot in a cabinet, and started fresh coffee brewing. He didn’t seem to be self-conscious about being watched, moving quietly around the room with a garbage bag Jack didn’t know they had. A reproving glance at Jack’s feet made him pull them off the table, so he braced his arms on it instead, resting his chin on one hand, soundlessly drumming the fingers of the other.

It was surprising how distracting a well-cut suit could be, he mused, as Ianto shrugged off his jacket, carefully folded it and laid it neatly over a chair back. He unfastened the shirt cuffs, rolling each one up twice, then turned back to the sink and began to wash the mugs occupying it. All that efficiency made Jack want to nudge it off balance. And why not? He was supposed to be interviewing, after all, not just enjoying the view.

“So,” he began, “were you one of the secretaries with guns?”

Ianto gave him a pained look. “We prefer to be called personal or administrative assistants, but yes, I did choose to carry a pistol in the building. Scientists can be surprisingly careless about making sure their experiments are totally dismantled. Trying to stop anything whilst armed only with a spray bottle and a memo pad convinced me that bullets and stun guns had their place.” His hands stilled and his voice became bleak. “Until the end. Then it didn’t really matter what you had. Nothing stopped them.” He scrubbed viciously at a stained mug.

Jack suspected that the few Torchwood 1 survivors were all suffering from a toxic mixture of rage, terror, and guilt, and would be for quite a while. Three weeks was not enough time to recover, and keeping them busy was the best therapy. Sitting and brooding created time bombs. “Where did you work?”

“Division 8, under Dr. Davies. Biological/Technological Interfaces.”

“Sounds fascinating.”

Ianto flashed Jack a small, ironic smile as he finished with the last mug and started to scrub the coffee pot. “Sometimes. Dr. Davies liked to talk about his work. I listened. You never know when you’ll learn something useful.” He rinsed the now sparkling pot and placed it carefully in the drainer, rolled down his sleeves and fastened each cuff. Jacket replaced, he took a clean cloth from the cabinet and began to dry the mugs he’d just washed.

Jack looked over to see Suzie in the doorway, probably drawn by the seductive smell of fresh coffee. “Suzie, meet Ianto. Hey, I want you to look at that glove thing next. Something about it gives me the creeps. Find out what it’s for so we can put it away.”

Suzie nodded, focused on the coffee like a cat at a fish tank. “Is that done yet?” Ianto took two of the mugs he’d just dried and poured coffee into them. He handed one to her and walked over to give the other to Jack. Suzie gulped the hot liquid greedily, then closed her eyes and clutched the mug to her chest with both hands. “Ooh, Jack, I want him,” she moaned. She refilled her mug from the pot, and Jack grinned, having had a sip at his own while she was playing drama queen. “Yeah, me too.”

“But I only want him for the coffee,” she retorted on her way out. Jack got up for his own refill, glancing at Ianto as he passed. He thought there was a slight flush on his face, but he was smiling a little, too.

Jack leaned against the counter and sipped his coffee. “As you see, we’re a little more casual here. Given what happened in London, I’d want you to start with assessing our security and alien protocols, pointing out any weaknesses you find. There’s years of unfiled reports to clear out of the storage room, a backlog of equipment requisitions, and we never have enough dead bodies in stock. I swear something around here eats pens and it’s not the pterodactyl; I’ve checked. You take care of all that and you can do anything you want to. There might be opportunities for fieldwork.”

“I don’t know about fieldwork,” Ianto said slowly. “I’m really more used to organizing things in the office. I don’t expect to have trouble finding a flat here, but it will take about a fortnight to make arrangements in London and to transfer everything I need.”

“Fine. If there’s a gap between starting here and finding a place, there are rooms in the Hub. They’re pretty basic--a bed and a shower--but sometimes people need to stay overnight for one reason or another, and I think Owen has drooled all over the couch. I don’t encourage anyone to do it for long. You need a life apart from Torchwood. You lose perspective if you don’t have something else to care about.”

Jack touched his earpiece. “Owen? What was it? Yeah? Ouch. We’ll talk about it in the morning; you should be all right by then. I guess you won’t get to meet our new admin. Yeah.” He smiled at Ianto mischievously. “Oh, tall, slim, attractive, efficient, makes amazing coffee. Lovely Welsh accent, probably speaks six languages. A real gem. Uh-huh...I’m guessing no on the short skirts and high heels thing, but you know how I feel about assumptions. Go home and don’t touch any aluminum.” Another tap on the earpiece ended the conversation. “When’s your train back to London?”

“Two hours and ten minutes. And it’s only four languages.”

“Not a problem. What about the short skirts and high heels?”

“I wouldn’t like to say, sir. I feel it’s essential to maintain some mystery this early in a relationship.”

“Unwrapping mysteries, my favorite.” Jack put his mug in the sink and headed for the door. “Let’s go meet the Weevils. Any questions so far?”

Following, Ianto said mildly, “No, I’m reasonably confident that I know what you want, Captain.”

 

*********************************************************

Jack parked the SUV and turned to Ianto in the passenger seat. He held out his hand and offered his most charming smile. “See you in a couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to having you here.”

“Thank you, sir, I’m glad this worked out.”

“When you come back we’ll go to the range, but you won’t routinely need a gun in the Hub. We don’t get rampaging aliens like London did. We have to hunt them down, they don’t usually come to us.” Jack was still holding Ianto’s hand, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb over the back of it.

Ianto gently disengaged his hand and said pleasantly, “I’ll keep you updated on my move to Cardiff.” He got out, shut the door firmly, and walked towards the station.

Jack watched until he entered the building, then drove back to the Hub to annoy Suzie by whistling cheerfully and off-key for the rest of the afternoon.


End file.
